Wednesday, October 15, 2008

One reason we don't want to stay here

Justin found a tiny bag of what we presumed to be crack (we didn't try to prove it) on the sidewalk in front of our house. The police's response was, yeah, that happens all the time, and we can't do anything about it because we can't connect it to anyone and if we responded to every report of crack on the sidewalk we'd do nothing else all day. And by the way don't touch it or you could be charged with possession. So that's super. We live in what I would consider one of the few "nice" neighborhoods in New Haven, i.e. the crime rate is low, houses are well maintained, and our immediate neighbors happen to be cops or retired cops. Obviously there is an unfortunate but real racial element involved in this as well, our neighborhood being mostly white (Italian-white, which is cool because I'm getting back to my roots, but obviously we don't just live here for the pizza). It's not what we would have expected, basically. I mean, not that it's a huge deal because it probably just fell out of someone's pocket and it doesn't necessarily mean drug transactions are taking place right outside our front door, but it makes me feel a little less safe here with a baby and a husband who we already both feel needs to take a shuttle or taxi when he comes back from school at night, "night" being anytime after 4:30 for much of the school year at this latitude. I actually liked New Haven in the summer, once we moved into town, but I think the honeymoon is coming to an end.